Paint, spray, love: Fighting graffiti with art

From laneways and hidden nooks around the Perth CBD, out to the suburbs and regional areas – there’s no shortage of lively, animated art spaces that bring energy, excitement and joy to communities.

Like with any art or creative pursuit, the works can be a highly subjective matter. They can also be conversation starters, pieces of inspiration and activate areas that were once under-utilised in the community.

Graffiti tagging? That’s vandalism. And it costs us and countless other businesses and councils money to remove ugly graffiti – sometimes removing from the same place many times over.

Partnering with urban artists is a win-win

As a member of the State Graffiti Taskforce, we take an active role in mitigating the impacts of vandalism in the community.

Facilitating urban art projects is a part of our graffiti mitigation strategy.

Providing talented urban artists with high profile canvasses to express their creativity has proven to be an effective tool in the reduction of vandalism.

The cost to supply artists with the tools and site access to complete urban art projects is minimal when compared to the cost to remove acts of vandalism.

The videos below showcase the urban art projects we commissioned in 2016 to reduce the impact of graffiti on two substations repeatedly targeted by vandals.

Moore St, East Perth: Watch as the Thirds Crew use a mix of a traditional graffiti styles and mural art to transform this previously tired – and frequently vandalised – building at Moore St, East Perth into an outdoor think piece. Thirds Crew is a world-renowned group of graffiti writers and muralists based in Perth, New York and Melbourne. This artwork talks about urban exploration and the hidden gems that we can find in our city if we only just look.

War of the Currents: ‘War of the Currents’ by Fudge Works features on our Beechboro substation. The artwork is an illustrative reference to the famous rivalry between Tesla and Edison often called the War of the Currents. The aim was to depict principles and elements of electricity in an abstract style but also reference traditional graffiti art.